


Soulmates are—

by BleedingTypewriter



Series: Pegoryu Week 2020 [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: A little friendly Goro Akechi ribbing, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Pegoryu Week 2020, Potential Royal spoilers, Potential Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25897387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingTypewriter/pseuds/BleedingTypewriter
Summary: Ryuji believes in soulmates.Akira thinks they're bullshit.They meet somewhere in the middle._______Pegoryu Week 2020 - Day 1 - Soulmates
Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji, Persona 5 Protagonist/Sakamoto Ryuji
Series: Pegoryu Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879306
Comments: 7
Kudos: 94





	Soulmates are—

Ryuji believes in soulmates.

He likes thinking that Ann and Shiho’s sickly sweet brand of infatuation was always going to happen; that it was always going to be worth all the hurt that had kicked it off.

He likes thinking that there was never another choice for his mother to make; that it was just shitty luck her soulmate ended up a mean drunk with a short fuse.

He likes thinking that, somewhere in the world, there’s someone who won’t be able to help themself when it comes to him, even with all his rough edges; someone who’ll fall just as dumb hard for him as he will for them.

He likes thinking that it’s no one’s fault when feelings only go one way.

It’s no one’s fault that Ryuji falls for a spectacular someone he’s just not _meant_ to be with.

It’s no one’s fault Akira’s actual soulmate is (probably) a goddamn _detective prince_.

It’s not that Goro Akechi is smart and cunning and handsome and, _god_ , everything Akira is and deserves (and everything Ryuji’s not). It’s not that Akira could never, ever, not in a million years, find Ryuji at all attractive (brash, impulsive, thick-skulled Ryuji, who’s quick on his feet but not on the uptake).

Ryuji just isn’t Akira’s _soulmate_.

And that blows in its own way, but at least Fate is easier to be pissed at than rejection.

_______________________

Akira thinks soulmates are bullshit.

He’s friends with an actual psychic, and he _still_ thinks soulmates are bullshit.

It’s not so much the idea that there might be a person out there made for him by some higher power—he tries not to think too hard about very real cosmic chess matches and what their existence implies about predetermination and the concept of Fate.

It’s the idea that there might be _one_ person out there made for him.

What kind of nonsense is that?

Akira’s been in Tokyo for less than a year and there are, like, a dozen or more people an argument could potentially be made for. It’s not that he thinks it’s impossible that any one of them might have been Destiny’s idea of his perfect partner, he just thinks it’s ridiculous that he should, by default, accept those specifications. He’s never been very good at that. 

Blame Fate and its insistence on making him a Wild Card.

Who knows what it had planned for him? Maybe a perky, damaged gymnast with a split personality. Maybe a slick prince detective who redefines daddy issues. Maybe a church-frequenting shogi player, or a sketchy back-alley doctor, or even a cat-bus hybrid from another plane of existence (hey, Destiny _is_ a real bitch, sometimes).

Who cares?

Akira’s tastes are simpler than all that. He likes people who are honest; strong; passionate. He likes people who feel hard and act fast and have fun.

He likes, it turns out, slouchy, loudmouthed, unstoppable blonde runners who strike a balance Akira hadn’t even known he was looking for between reliance and support.

And it’s not that he thinks Fate _couldn’t_ have made Ryuji with Akira in mind, he just thinks it doesn’t matter. _Soulmates_ or not, Ryuji’s who he likes.

And sure, he’s kind of pissed off at Fate about it (because it couldn’t play at least _little_ nice and make Ryuji not so _horrendously_ straight), but not as much as he would be if it weren’t his own stubborn choice.

_______________________

“You _don’t_ believe in soulmates?”

Ryuji balks as he asks, like it’s not a silly question.

Akira wrinkles his nose. “Soulmates are bullshit.”

Ryuji laughs, and it’s not bitter—not really—but there’s something acrid in it. “Akechi must love that.”

Akira laughs, too. “I don’t even want to know what Akechi thinks about soulmates. Edgelord probably thinks they’re destined to destroy each other or something.”

“Ah, right.” Ryuji chuckles a second too late. That acrid something is still there; seems more pronounced inside the quieter noise. “He probably does. Heh.”

Akira, stretched out over his futon with the week’s latest manga butterflied on his pillow, marks his place with a carelessly folded corner. There’s no affronted scoff, so he knows Ryuji isn’t looking at him. “Why?” he asks, rolling onto his side, resting his head in one hand. It makes his glasses dig in above one ear; has them lying crooked across his nose so one half of Ryuji’s body, hunched on the floor at the side of the bed, is obscured by the wide, blurry black panel of his frames. He can only see the rise and fall of one of Ryuji’s shoulders as he shrugs.

“I mean…”

Ryuji doesn’t elaborate on what he means. He keeps his head down like he’s still reading the manga in his lap, but the one shoulder Akira can see is shaking, like he’s bouncing one of his crossed legs. Akira wonders if it’s his bad leg; if whatever’s bothering Ryuji is bothering him that much.

“You mean…?” Akira prompts.

“I mean, _shouldn’t_ Akechi care what you think about stuff like that?”

Akira shifts. So do his glasses, just enough to one side that he can see the way the back of Ryuji’s neck has flushed, brilliant and bright and curling all the way around the sides of his throat. He blushes like a _dude_ : no subtlety about it. Akira wants to press his lips against the red flesh to see if it's as warm as it looks.

He’s never considered the possibility that Ryuji might want that, too.

He does now.

“...why?” Akira asks again. It’s both of Ryuji’s legs that must be bouncing, he decides. They’re so violent about it that he can feel the vibrations through the mattress.

“Come on, man, don’t make me say it…” Ryuji mumbles, voice low and tight and uncomfortable the way it usually goes when things get too fluffy or gay or close to the chest.

Akira has never considered the possibility that it might get that way when things aren’t fluffy or gay or close _enough_.

He certainly does now.

“Say what?”

Ryuji’s shoulders try to sock him in the ears. Akira can’t see it with his best friend still turned determinedly away, but the papery little _pahf_ he hears must mean the manga has slipped shut in Ryuji’s lap. “That you’re...I mean, aren’t you and Akechi, like…you know...?”

Oh.

Oh god.

Ryuji stumbles a moment more, and then posits as quietly as Akira’s ever heard him: “Isn’t Akechi your soulmate?”

Oh _Yaldabaoth_.

A noise comes out of Akira that starts as a laugh and gets caught up with an incredulous _huh?!_ somewhere around his Adam’s apple, so it ends up a sharp, stupid sort of honk. It makes Ryuji jump. He glances at Akira for the first time since they started talking, and _god_ does he pick a moment: Akira’s mouth is slack, his glasses still skewed, his cheeks hot and pink (he blushes decidedly unlike a _dude_ : all understated and soft).

He’s never considered what Ryuji might think about soulmates, or Akira’s potential wealth of them.

 _He certainly does now_.

“Soulmates are bullshit,” he says. His lips are still a little slack, so the syllables blend together on one breath.

“But Akechi–”

“Akechi is bullshit, too.”

Akira’d been going for emphatic, but there’s too much shock in his voice. It makes him sound closer to desperate than he’d like. Ryuji’s definitely looking at him, now, and usually Akira can read everything he’s thinking on his face, but this time his expression is tight in the middle and red all over and Akira can’t make sense of it.

Ryuji makes his own sharp, stupid sort of honk. “He is? I mean, he _is_ , but…” He scrubs one hand over the back of his flushed neck. “...but to _you_ he is?”

Akira licks his lips, but his mouth is strangely dry. He feels a little like he’s taken one of Takemi’s better medicines; like he’s in the giddy, awful moment before he passes out. “Okay, not _bullshit_ bullshit. I like stuff about him. The less murder-y parts we’re dealing with now aren’t so bad.” He tries a laugh. So does Ryuji, but his is weak at both ends. “But it’s not like that with us. There _isn’t_ an us.”

“...oh.” Ryuji manages to put a surprising amount of regret into that one little sound.

Akira doesn’t understand why it’s there at all. He’d have expected something like embarrassment; hoped for something like relief. “Is that a bad thing?”

Ryuji jolts. “No! No, it’s not. It’s fine. It’s whatever.” He clears his throat and drops his eyes to Akira’s sheets and looks for all the world like he’s trying to confirm the thread count by eye alone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make things awkward. I just assumed...I mean the two of you are kinda…”

That brings up questions about the similarities between him and Goro that verge far too closely for Akira’s liking on ones about gods and the games they play with their Wild Cards. He doesn’t want _those_ questions to show on his face; not with all these hopeful little avenues opening up where he’d been so sure for so long there’d be only dead ends.

He forces an over-the-top grimace and curls the edges of it into a grin. “I _know_ , I know, I hear enough about how similar we are from _him_ , thank you very much. Don’t make me think about it. What if I go all murder-y one day, too?”

He laughs, and Ryuji does, too, and this time it’s abrupt and gruff, like the taste of it is unexpected. “Dude…” he chuckles, and he’s still pretty red, but it seems like it’s fading a little, at least.

Akira wishes Ryuji would look up again. He wants to see what his face is doing; wants to take another crack at working out whatever weird language it’s decided to speak. He sits up with a little grunt to see if he can coax those eyes back up, but no dice. Ryuji just dutifully makes room and seems to count the fibers in the carpet, instead, as Akira plops onto the floor beside him.

“Okay, so,” Akira ventures carefully, “who’s your soulmate, then?”

There’s that red again, right up to Ryuji’s hairline and down to his collar (and probably below that, too, though Akira perishes the thought before it turns his own ears pinker). “I dunno. Maybe you’re right. Maybe soulmates are...” Ryuji trails off, like somehow the concept that they’re bullshit is just as panic-inducing as Akira’s question. “Maybe I just haven’t _met_ my…” That seems even worse. “I don’t know, man! Who’s _yours_ if it’s not Akechi?”

And _yikes_ , if he doesn’t obviously regret _that_ question the second it comes out his mouth. He looks at Akira again, finally, but it’s with poorly hidden horror. Akira wonders if he’d scream if he wasn’t pursing his lips so tight.

“Soulmates are bullshit,” Akira repeats quietly, “but if they weren’t, who knows? Could be anybody.”

“...anybody?”

 _There_ ’ _s_ the hope in Ryuji’s voice that Akira’d been looking for, and it’s all over his face, too.

It’s more nerve wracking than Akira’d imagined. It creates an opportunity he’s never thought he’d be given, and the reality of it is a bizarrely stressful kind of relief. “Well,” he replies quietly, “maybe not _anybody_...I have my preferences…”

“Yeah?” Ryuji swallows hard. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his face. It’s a strange look on him; cute, but foreign. He’s usually such an open book, it’s weird seeing him try (and fail) to stay neutral. “What kind of pref—?”

Later, Akira won’t be able to explain what had made him choose that moment to kiss Ryuji for the first time.

He’ll shrug and play it off with a cool, ‘ _I didn’t hear you complaining_ ,’ and Ryuji will go red again and tell him that it’s _not a good enough answer at all_ , but he’ll drop it all the same when Akira gives a repeat performance.

Really, though, it’s just that…

Right at that second, right on that syllable...

Ryuji just looks so _sweet_ —so nervous and wary and scared—and Akira’s not sure how they went from a normal lazy afternoon conversation to _this_ but he’s thanking his lucky stars, and he’s afraid if he lets this weird talking-not-talking go on too long they’ll find a way to talk around the elephant in the room and not end up addressing it at all, and…

Look, Akira didn’t take all those Big Bang Challenges for nothing.

He goes with his gut.

Mid-word, he cuts off his best friend with a kiss.

And ha.

_Ha._

_Akira: 2, Fate: 0_

_Get wrecked, Destiny, because Ryuji Sakamoto kisses him back_.

He stiffens for a second, sure, and jerks as if he’s going to pull away, but Akira holds fast and brushes a thumb against his jaw and tilts his head to slide closer at a better angle, and a second later Ryuji is _melting_ against him; _sagging_ into the kiss, like _not_ kissing Akira has been a physical effort all this time. He chases Akira when he tries to pull back; grabs a handful of his shirt in a shaking fist and turns one kiss into two, three, four, holding longer each time like he’s afraid Akira will change his mind if he lets him get too far away.

Akira’s glasses get in the way, and they’re both awkwardly turned into each other (side-by-side on the floor and twisted at the waist and knocking their knees together), and Akira feels ridiculous running his fingers up into Ryuji’s hair the way he does, but he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands (and if he keeps them still he’s sure they’ll do something dumb, like start to shake or sweat), and nothing— _nothing_ —about it feels like soulmates coming together in a burst of predetermined love, but...

As Akira pulls back he wonders—absently; low-key; just a _little_ —if maybe soulmates aren’t such bullshit after all...

Because whatever’s happening right now, it certainly feels like it’s been made for him; been _gifted_ to him.

“Maybe you were right about soulmates,” Ryuji mumbles. He’s blushing hard, frozen in place a few inches from Akira’s face, staring like he’s never seen it before. “Maybe they are bullshit…” He sounds strangely awed, like the bullshit-ness of soulmates is some generous, wondrous thing.

He sounds like he did that one surreal time he’d equated Akira with freedom.

“I don’t know,” Akira says, and peels Ryuji’s hand away from where it’s still clenched in his shirt, and wriggles his fingers in between Ryuji’s warm, shaky ones. “Maybe you were onto something with them after all.”

Ryuji blushes, and so does Akira, and the hands they have clasped get caught between them when they lean in to kiss each other again. And whether it’s in defiance of or compliance with Fate, it _is_ , and that’s all either of them really care about, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy the one SFW thing I'm likely to produce this Pegoryu Week. 😈
> 
> I'm on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/BleedingType) (warning: NSFW account 🔞🔞🔞)


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